


maybe I can stay a while (I'm talking like all of the time)

by thegoodlannister



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (of the snoke to kylo ren variety), Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, hux just didn't realize he would be so good at it, hux the reluctant snuggler, kylo ren needs someone to hold him together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7151588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodlannister/pseuds/thegoodlannister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which it falls on hux to keep all assets of the first order in working order, and kylo ren is no different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe I can stay a while (I'm talking like all of the time)

**Author's Note:**

> because I've known I was going to fall into kylux hell for weeks now.

"What time is't?" Ren's words are slurred as he stirs beside Hux.  He's been dead to the world for the past six of their standard hours, and he looks patently ridiculous.  There's a crease on his face where it was pressed against Hux's pillow and his hair has turned itself into some sort of bird's nest and - Hux shudders to think - is that  _drool_ on the corner of his mouth?  

He snorts.  Disgraceful.  Hux doesn't find the other occupant of his bed endearing in the slightest.  Which does nothing to explain the way his hand presses down on Ren's shoulder when he shifts like he's considering getting up.  Dark eyes open to squint blearily across the bed at Hux, and the general smoothly reaches over him to brighten the overhead lighting to thirty percent, his fingers finding the holopad from memory.  Ren squeezes his eyes shut again in reaction to the intrusion, making a little noise of protest in the back of his throat. 

The display Ren makes is even worse in the dim light - the six hours having done nothing for how pale his face seems against the harshness of the scar the scavenger gave him - and Hux clicks his tongue at him. "Stars, Ren - you're a mess.  Go back to sleep."  He presses down harder on Ren's shoulder, but the knight has never been any good at doing what he's told, and he lifts himself up on one arm in response, letting out a pained groan as he does so.

Hux knows of the spectacular bruising mapped all down Ren's side - he saw it last night, the same nearly-black purple of the expanse of space outside the  _Finalizer_ ’s bay doors - and he also knows it's hurting the knight, though he refuses anything that might help.  This is both illogical and inexpedient, which Hux assumes must mean that it has something to do with the Force.   "Don't be an idiot, Ren - lie still," he bites out.  "Even I'm not getting up yet."

"Nnnngh, Hux," Ren complains, directly disobeying Hux's orders as if he hasn't heard them at all.  "The Supreme Leader, he says I've - oh  _kriff_!"  He lets himself drop to the bed and wraps an arm around his ribs protectively, looking sleepy and sullen.  Ren's eyes close again as he catches his breath, breathing noisily through his teeth, and some traitorous part of Hux longs to brush that nest of hair back behind Ren's ridiculous ears.  The thought makes Hux wish that his own sense of self-preservation wouldn’t stay his hand him from punching himself in the face. 

"You always think you know everything, Hux!  But you don't.  You don’t _understand_ ,” Ren whines.  “He says I've nearly completed my training.  That I'm to push myself.  I can't be weak, I can't allow myself to feel like this.”  His hands flutter over the bruising they both know is there, as if he wants to reassure himself that his touch can make it still worse.  “If it hurts that means it's working.  It should hurt, I just can't take it, it’s me,  _I’m_  wrong, I -”

Hux has never trusted the Force - he's never had need of anything he couldn’t touch or see with his own eyes, of any skill he couldn't be taught through practiced repetition - and he trusts it even less now that he sees what this  _training_ does to Ren.  The Supreme Leader says it is making his apprentice stronger, but Ren seems more fractured by the day.  The knight is speaking quickly now, the way he does when Hux knows he's not speaking to him anymore at all.  If this is what strength in the Force looks like, he does not think he wants to see what the completion of Ren's training will bring.  How long before the boy’s pieces are so scattered even Hux won’t be able to reassemble them?

"Ren!" he says sharply, giving the shoulder in his grasp a harsh shake.  "Get ahold of yourself.  You're going to wake up half the ship!"

He supposes that doesn't matter to Ren - this is the boy who destroys entire roomfuls of equipment like he's never heard of the term expense report - but it's enough to get him to stop babbling, all huge, dark eyes tracked directly on Hux’s face.  He allows his touch to gentle again, brushes just the ends of Ren's hair, where they're long enough to curl onto his shoulder - and thinks on last night.  Of the way Ren had looked when Hux had found him wandering blindly outside the officers' quarters, his mask Maker knows where and his always tattered robes more askew than ever.  Of how he hadn't seemed to know where he was when Hux had stopped to reprimand him for his appearance.

Of how his words had been slow and stilted and odd, hadn't made sense even as he'd tried to refuse Hux's help.  Of the way he'd startled when Hux had yelled "Stop fighting me or we're both going to be injured!" Of how he'd barely been able to keep track of his feet and robes well enough not to end up flat on his face as Hux had herded him back to his own quarters.

(Of the panic in his eyes when he’d pushed Hux's hands away from the bruising on his side.  Of how he'd almost begged Hux not to take him to medical, not to do anything for them.)

...Hux understands that sometimes suffering is necessary.  Does not mind inflicting it, when the occasion calls.  While it may not be a joyful thing, duty is duty, after all.  But more and more, there's something needless and cruel about this that he cannot justify.

In that moment, looking at Kylo Ren trying to leave his bed, Hux makes a decision.  "There was a holocall," he says, rolling to face Ren, the ends of the knight's hair still in his fingers.  "Early this morning.  I think me speaking must have been what woke you."  Hux breathes deep - he hopes the lie sticks.  Hopes he manages to find a way to explain this to Snoke that doesn't end badly for the both of them.  Hopes treason, however small, does not become a habit.  "The Supreme Leader says you're to rest today.  You'll resume your training tomorrow.  The orders come from him."

There is a beat of silence before Ren whispers "...he really said that?"  The knight’s usually deep voice sounds small, like a child who has been told something he couldn't have hoped to hear and can't dare to believe.

“Yes.”  Hux meets Ren's eyes, lets his confidence that this is the right path color the word until even he believes it.  “You’re no use to anyone as you are.”  That part, at least, is true - and Snoke can hang if he doesn’t see it.

"Why wouldn't he contact me himself?" Ren is just this side of suspicious, but Hux knows it's only because he feels he should be.  As soon he grants Ren the smallest twitch of a smile, there is no doubting that Hux has him.

"He didn't want to wake you.”  The lie comes smoothly now, like flying on auto.  "Now do what you're told for once and sleep.  You don't want to disappoint the Supreme Leader, do you?"  

It's a low blow and he knows it, but it works.  Within moments, he can feel the tension leave Ren's shoulders, and then the knight is snuggling closer to him, his large nose wedged into the hollow of Hux's collarbone.  It is instinct to rest his hand in the space between Ren’s shoulder blades as he stares into the ceiling, trying with every bit of restraint he has not to relish the way Ren's hair tickles his nose when he breathes in just right.  He has mentally deconstructed and reconstructed his entire fleet of starships six times over before the feeling becomes something he can ignore.

(Hux is sure Ren has fallen back to sleep and is just on the cusp of doing so himself when there is a hitch in Ren's breathing - and then, to his horror, a sniffle against his shirtfront.  For a moment, he is stunned into silence - but then Ren sniffles again, louder this time, impossible to mistake.  The boy is  _crying_.  "Stop that right this instant," Hux admonishes.  “It makes you look pathetic."  But when the only response he gets is a wordless shake of the head accompanied by a watery-sounding gulp, Hux just pulls Ren in closer.

Duty, he thinks, his lips brushing the top of Kylo Ren’s head entirely by accident, comes in many forms.)

_End._


End file.
